The present disclosure relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method and a program for them, which are intended to improve doctors' efficiency in diagnosis.
One of the common practice employed in the medical field has been a diagnosis based on medical photographic images of patients' organs.
An example of such diagnosis is so-called virtual microscopic system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei 9-281405. It is intended to photograph divided small regions through a high-resolution object lens and subsequently join the thus photographed images together to reconstruct a large image for observation. This system permits doctors to use image data for pathological diagnosis and also permits image data to be accumulated, copied, and shared among hospitals through the network.
Another method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2008-242984 listed below for providing the medical image with image inspection processing information which permits one to acquire information about image inspection.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2010-33476 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2004-33539 listed below disclose the method for rearranging medical images and medical information in chronological order so that the rearranged images and information are used to easily observe change with time.
There is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2009-175040 listed below another method for image processing, which is designed to detect the region of interest for the pathological doctor in the images of pathological tissues and then photograph with a high magnification the surroundings of the thus detected region of interest.